Quantifying large-scale continental shelf margin growth and dynamics across mid-Cretaceous Arctic Alaska with detrital zircon U-Pb dating

Sequence stratigraphy provides a unifying framework for integrating diverse observations to interpret sedimentary basin evolution; however, key time assumptions about stratigraphic elements spanning hundreds of kilometers are rarely quantified. We integrate new detrital zircon U-Pb (DZ) dates from 28 samples with seismic mapping to establish a chronostratigraphic framework across 800 km and ~20 m.y. for the middle-Cretaceous Torok-Nanushuk clinothem of Arctic Alaska (USA). Shelf-margin DZ dates indicate continent-scale sediment routing with Russian Chukotka provenance and provide reliable maximum depositional ages derived from arc volcanism. Shelf-margin advance rates display a clear relationship to toplap trajectories and provide empirical support for long-held inferences linking sediment supply to margin architecture. Two distinct shelf-margin growth regimes are evident: (1) a ca. 115–107 Ma phase of rapid ~50 km/m.y. shelf advance rates with mainly progradational trajectories; and (2) a ca. 107–98 Ma phase of moderate ~13 km/m.y. shelf advance rates with progradational-retrogradational-aggradational trajectories. We established a subsequent shelf–to–deep water correlation by independently dating ca. 98–95 Ma low shelf accommodation and basin-floor deposition as far as 240 km east that indicate lowstand shedding and a change to localized routing with Brooks Range provenance. Finally, we dated a ca. 95 Ma basin-wide transgression at deep-water to shelfal settings across 350 km that exhibits apparent synchroneity consistent with an event-significant surface. In one of the world’s largest foreland-basin clinothems, our work constrains the timing and duration of key depositional elements to test large-scale sequence stratigraphic assumptions, enables reliable correlation and quantification of sediment dynamics across 800 km, and captures the chronology of a giant regressive-transgressive cycle.